‘Unemployment is a crisis in South Africa. One
way to alleviate this is to reduce the constraints
on and provide support to the productive sectors
of the economy, which have underperformed the
tertiary sectors of the economy.’
But employers are warning that such demands, without a commensurate increase and improvement in productivity, spell disaster
for their companies, which are already battling with waning domestic demand while the export market has been stunted by the general
global downturn.
Such challenges require all the role players in the economy – particularly the government, unions and the private sector – to engage
in discussions on what can be done to translate the objectives of the
NDP into practical interventions which can address the economic
and social problems facing South Africa, one of the most unequal
societies in the world. Investment in labour-intensive sectors is critical because this can easily absorb many of South Africa’s unemployed and unskilled. Unemployment in South Africa increased to
25.6% in the second quarter of 2013 from 25.2% in the first quarter.
From 2000 until 2013, the unemployment rate averaged 25.5%, reaching an all-time high of 31.2% in March of 2003, and achieved a record
low of 21.9% in December of 2008.
Unemployment is a crisis in South Africa. One way to alleviate
this is to reduce the constraints on and provide support to the productive sectors of the economy, which have underperformed the
tertiary sectors of the economy. Sectors such as mining, agriculture
and manufacturing have the potential to create employment, particularly for those with limited skills. ‘Better performance out of the
supply-side sectors of the economy can help us to achieve more externally sustainable growth while absorbing lower skilled labour in
greater numbers. This would mean faster growth for longer, before
running into balance of payments constraints that cause currency
and macroeconomic volatility,’ he says. He re-iterates: ‘This hinges
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